Each May at UU Wellesley Hills is Membership Month, and this program year we are profiling the newest members of our congregation. This week, we feature Nina Moss, who became a member of UU Wellesley Hills in June 2020.
Nina lives in Waltham with her husband Bob and, most recently during the pandemic, their daughter Lydia, age 29.
Recently, Nina connected with Board of Trustees Chair Kathy Coolidge to answer a few questions about herself.
Where did you grow up and go to school?
I grew up in the People’s Republic of Cambridge and went to Buckingham School. Initially, I was a ballet dancer with the Boston Ballet and in my mid-twenties went to Tufts University, where I graduated in 1977. Five years later, I went to the Yale School of Management for a Master of Private and Public Management degree, an MPPM, later renamed an MBA. Alphabet soup degrees do not resonate well in the business world.
What is your religious background? What brought you to UU Wellesley Hills?
I was sort of “raised by wolves” with no religious background. My dad was raised a Catholic in Hungary until the family emigrated in 1939; with the subsequent considerable adjustments to an entirely different life in New York, religious education and affiliation were sacrificed. Since there was no attention paid to spiritual matters, in my late twenties, I began a church-shopping quest which continued on and off over the next 40 years. Always driven by my love of all kinds of church music, I tried out Catholic church, several Protestant denominations, and even an Evangelical church, although in that case, my motive was to learn what the evangelical movement was all about. I knew from the get-go that it would not be a fit.
One of my closest friends from graduate school told me that although I thought of myself as a heathen, I was really a UU who hadn’t figured it out yet. That was the first of several signs from the universe. From a young age, music was the path to my spiritual self. My mother was a serious pianist. I was trained on the piano, my brother on flute. Mom emphasized to us that throughout history, so much of the great western choral and instrumental music was commissioned by, paid for, and performed in religious institutions. I have sung with the Wellesley Choral Society (WCS) since 2011. Nancy Nichols, wife of our minister emeritus John Nichols, is a friend and fellow soprano, which is maybe signal #2. When WCS became a tenant here for our home rehearsal and performance space several years ago, I noticed the tapestries on the walls of the Sanctuary. Nancy explained the relationship of UU Wellesley Hills with Torockó, which was yet another signal.
A few years ago, Suzie invited singers from surrounding churches and communities to join with the UUSWH and the Stow UU choirs to practice for a joint UU Music Sunday production of the Faure Requiem, which was a piece I had long wanted to sing. So, I came into UUSWH via the choir. I so enjoyed working with Suzie and the choir bunch, a very welcoming group, that after Music Sunday, I asked if I could continue on with choir.
Soon after Music Sunday, Rev. Kelly preached a sermon about atheism and how Unitarian Universalism welcomes all, including agnostics and atheists — this was probably the tipping point for me. Clearly, this was a place where I could land, ask questions, express doubts about and start to explore what faith could be for me, and also feel safe in doing so. I joined formally in June of 2020.
Q. What kind of work do you do?
A. I was a ballet dancer with the Boston Ballet until I was 23. I apprenticed at 16 years old, joined the corps at 18, but after 5 years, I realized that I did not have the singular dedication required for the long haul. Everything I’ve done since Boston Ballet, I’ve done late. Graduating college, in my late twenties, I taught in the Somerville public schools, a noble but poor choice in the 1970s economic era of “Reduction In Force”, during which most newly minted teachers had to work as an itinerate work force. I moved on to working for a series of not-for-profit organizations to learn something about management (as a bossy organization-driven person, this part came naturally), and about marketing and finance, about which I knew exactly zero.
Eventually I went to business school, joined a bank training program, and became a middle market and small business lender. The time I spent doing this was a great opportunity to learn how the business world worked and to learn what it would take to create and run a small business. In the late 1980s, I was laid low for 12 years with debilitating migraines. The silver lining was that I met and married my husband, Bob, and we had a daughter, Lydia, now 29.
Emerging from the migraine era, I started an organizing business with a friend, helping people prepare to downsize, move, renovate, etc. One of my clients, a psychiatrist in private practice, moved to Washington, D.C. in 2012; overwhelmed by setting up in a house seen once before moving in, she asked me to come down, stay a week, and set up the new house. Nine months later, she called to ask me to help launch and run the business end of her practice, remotely. This opportunity dovetailed nicely with my need to start cutting back on the organizing work, as I had increasing responsibility to manage my mother’s life post-stroke and to help my husband mange his medical and work life as his Parkinson’s disease started to progress. This is what I continue to do now.
Q. What parts of congregational life are most meaningful to you?
A. Without formal spiritual education, music has been my church. This year of Covid-19 has clarified much for me: my wish to find paths to my soul in addition to music, given that singing with others has been a huge (and hopefully temporary) loss for those of us who get so much from singing with others in a group; my need for community with people who contribute to others in quite a variety of ways, who choose to live life with purpose and take what matters to them seriously without taking themselves seriously; and my finding a group of people who have a well-developed sense of humor. You all laugh a lot here!
Q. How are you managing quarantining?
A. I’m kind of a solo person, so in some ways, I’ve adapted very well. I have a lot of caretaking responsibilities, between my mother at Fox Hill Village and my husband at home. It was a particular challenge to manage my mother’s life and care via Alexa while Fox Hill was in lockdown. The practice business has been exceedingly busy with so many patients and families in crisis mode. It has been a year of very long days.
A grace note has been the way both Suzie and WCS director, Ted Whelan, have re-created choir and chorus for Zoom. Both have figured out a way to teach so much about breathing, sight reading, paying close attention to the other-than-my-own voice sections, and phrasing with attention to both music and text. From Suzie in particular, I have learned the importance of text when singing for church. Equally important, I have had many much-needed laughs with both groups. Zoom Fellowship and coffee hour have allowed me to get to know several UUSWH people much more quickly than I might have otherwise. And I joined a great Touchstones group, something I might not have done right away in pre Covid-19 world.
Q. What’s most important to you at this point in your life?
A. It’s important that I’m remaining useful and of service; that I’m keeping both brain and body in shape, given that I have a lot of caretaking responsibility; that I’m working on developing more patience and on remaining hopeful even as I habitually prepare for the worst; and that I’m trying things that intimidate or scare me, within reason. I‘ve finally realized that what can be learned in the attempt is far more important than whether I fail or succeed. And surprise, surprise! I’ve actually done well at some of what I was originally tempted to avoid. Lastly, I’m finding bits of serenity, humor and joy in what is simple: in our three felines, a 7 year-old cat and two 11 month-old kittens; in gardening (mostly weeding!), just me, weeds, birds and the endless, hilarious parade of chipmunks, squirrels, and rabbits.
We are very glad to have Nina Moss as one of our many marvelous members here at UU Wellesley Hills!
Be sure to come to Fellowship Hour this Sunday, May 30th at 11:30 a.m. to meet Nina and learn a bit more about her.